Private Eye

Private Eye is a British satirical fortnightly magazine with a liberal bias, founded in 1961 and currently edited by Ian Hislop. Its contents are a mixture of spoof news items, straight reporting and investigative journalism, cartoons, and an esoteric range of classified advertisements.[1] It has a particular penchant for gossip about media and political figures. It has no overt political line, being too content to mock all British political parties for careerism and hypocrisy. The comedian Peter Cook was involved in the creation and running of Private Eye until his death, regularly contributing to columns and helping fund the large overheads which the publication and regular legal activity surrounding it incurred. The magazine uses a number of running gags; one of the most frequently employed, is when the writers of an item run out of steam, they break off by directing readers to a non-existent page, and this has the (contd. p94).